I have visited several websites

Question

I have visited several websites and tried several things to try to sign into Windows Live Messenger. When I troubleshoot it comes up as hosts file error - you may have WL Messenger related entries in your hosts file that are interfering... and key ports error. I've checked my firewall but it says it allows MSN. Going into options it says I can not connect to the.NET Messenger service. I can connect to the internet and I can log into Web Messenger. I have also tried reinstalling but it still doesn't work! My SOCKS part comes up empty in Options if that's any help. Any assistance you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance